What that won’t be, according to Doug Field, the Chief Advanced Product Development and Technology Officer at Ford e, is a fairly cynical cash grab for every possible feature. “Charging for heated seats is going to p*ss people off,” he warned during a roundtable discussion at Ford’s Detroit facility, which SlashGear attended. “We don’t want to take current products and take something away, and then charge to get that back.”
Instead, Ford is looking to options that buyers might be cautious about when they’re first ordering an electric vehicle, or which may only be possible long after it has been built. “Performance can definitely be that,” Field says. “You can decide do you want to charge per 0-60 run, do you want to give them a free trial? Do you want them to buy it, or do you want them to pay it every month?”
Rather than seat warming, though, Field has features like Ford BlueCruise in mind. The hands-free driver assistance system — which allows compatible vehicles to keep pace with traffic, and centered in lanes, without the driver touching the wheel — isn’t fully autonomous driving, but it does include elements associated with that. The complex result could end up turning new buyers off in the dealership. “People are not going to want to invest in it when they buy the car, because they don’t understand it,” Field suggests.
An update later on, in contrast, could follow a free trial and see BlueCruise only enabled for select road trips or — conversely — added permanently to the vehicle, depending on how the driver wants to use it, and how much they want to spend.
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